ABSTRACT These P20 applications describe the development of a collaborative theme-specific partnership between City College of New York, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. This collaboration is called the TREND Partnership: Translational Research Education and Training to Eliminate Tobacco Disparities. The TREND Partnership builds on an existing, mutually beneficial, and evolving partnership between two exceptional institutions with unique capacities. The goal for this planning grant application is to develop the coordinated capacity within and between our institutions to support collaborative research, research training, and education efforts aimed at reducing tobacco-related cancer health disparities. We have three primary objectives: 1) To provide funding, mentoring, and support for two CCNY/MSK collaborative translational tobacco-related disparities Pilot Research Projects for Early Stage Investigators. These projects will obtain preliminary data that will lead directly to submission of competitive peer-reviewed funding proposals. 2) To provide translational cells to society tobacco-related disparities research training for CCNY students and MSK Research Fellows with broad exposure to relevant scientific domains. We will establish: a) four research training positions at CCNY with appropriate CCNY/MSK faculty mentors and tobacco disparities research project placements, and b) a series of CCNY/MSK shared training activities focused on the specific research topics and skills needed to examine and address tobacco disparities. 3) To augment CCNY clinical program curricula to include knowledge and competencies about tobacco use and dependence, tobacco-related disparities, and the evidence-based treatment of tobacco dependence. We will incorporate: a) Knowledge and competencies associated with tobacco and nicotine biochemistry, nicotine addiction, tobacco-related disparities, and tobacco use and dependence treatment as a permanent interdisciplinary, longitudinal thread from the basic to clinical sciences in the BS/MD curriculum; b) Knowledge and competencies associated with tobacco-related disparities and the evidence-based treatment of tobacco dependence as a permanent, required element of the Physician Assistant (PA) curriculum and the Certified Addiction Substance Abuse Counselor (CASAC) curriculum, and d) lessons learned into a competitive R25 grant application to support the development of a tobacco-disparities research Institutional Curriculum Development Project that will provide ongoing research training in and dissemination of tobacco disparities research to the CCNY, MSK, and broader NYC communities. This R25 project will develop and test a model for developing the capacity to address tobacco-related cancer disparities that can be replicated elsewhere. Meeting the TREND Partnership objectives will have a sustained and powerful impact on our shared capacity to conduct cancer disparities research, research training, and education as well as a significant impact on the current knowledge base relative to understanding and addressing tobacco disparities.